At the Amazon MX Player StreamingNext 2025 event, Benedict Evans, Venture Partner at Mosaic Ventures, delivered a compelling session on the transformation of television, e-commerce, advertising, and technology. In just 15 minutes, Evans took the audience on a journey through the sweeping changes redefining these industries, highlighting the shift from traditional models to a future dominated by AI, personalization, and streaming. With his signature wit and sharp analysis, Evans painted a picture of a world where old business models are being unbundled and reimagined.
The Fall of the Dinosaurs and the Rise of Disruptors
Evans opened his session with a striking anecdote: a few years ago, the owner of Heinz described himself as a “terrified dinosaur.” The reason? The business landscape he once knew—built on scale, efficiency, and predictability—was crumbling. In today’s world, e-commerce, media, and marketing have all become infinite, with endless products, content, and retail possibilities. Traditional supply chains and advertising models are being dismantled, creating space for new challengers to rise.
The impact of e-commerce, which has been evolving for decades, is more significant than ever. It now accounts for a quarter of retail spending in most markets, with India ahead of the global average and rapidly catching up with the U.S. This shift has enabled new business models like Net-A-Porter, which delivers luxury fashion directly to customers’ doorsteps, regardless of location or weather conditions.
However, Evans warned that legacy brands often fail to recognize disruption until it’s too late. He pointed to BlackBerry as a case study in complacency. Even four years after the iPhone launched, BlackBerry’s sales were still growing—until they suddenly collapsed. This phenomenon, which Evans called the Wile E. Coyote Effect, describes how businesses can continue running in mid-air, oblivious to the fact that the ground beneath them has disappeared.
The Great Unbundling of Business Models
For decades, the formula for business success was simple: manufacture products efficiently, distribute them through retailers, invest in advertising, and sell to consumers. However, today, every element of this process is being unbundled. Manufacturing, distribution, advertising, and sales have all been redefined by technology, new aggregators, and shifting consumer behavior.
Quoting tech veteran Jim Barksdale, Evans reminded the audience: “There are only two ways to make money: bundling and unbundling.” Right now, the world is experiencing a phase of unbundling, where traditional business structures are being dismantled and replaced by new ecosystems. For brands, this means a complete rethink of their marketing strategies.
Despite the dramatic shifts in commerce and media, Evans noted that consumers still fundamentally ask just two key questions: How will I know about this product? and How will I get it? However, unlike in the past, media, advertising, retail, and logistics have now merged into one interconnected system. No longer do brands separate their budgets for advertising, pricing, shipping, and storefronts. Instead, businesses must now make more complex decisions, such as whether to increase ad spending or lower prices, or whether to open physical stores or double down on digital marketing.
AI, Streaming, and the New Age of Television
Evans emphasized that while software has been eating the world, AI is now eating software—and video is eating everything. Streaming platforms have overtaken traditional TV networks in content spending, and YouTube now funds programming at a scale comparable to Hollywood studios. The influence of creators like MrBeast, who regularly garners over 100 million views per video, rivals that of major streaming platforms.
India is a prime example of this transformation. Three-quarters of video consumption in the country happens on smartphones, making it a multi-channel, omnichannel market with over a billion mobile users and millions of connected TV viewers. To remain competitive, global streaming platforms are shifting towards localized content, moving beyond English to cater to multiple Indian languages. This trend is being further accelerated by AI-driven dubbing and translation, which are revolutionizing how content is localized and consumed.
AI and the Future of Advertising
Beyond content, AI is fundamentally reshaping advertising, personalization, and measurement. Brands no longer create a single ad and hope for the best. Instead, they now use AI to generate thousands of personalized ad variations, testing them across different demographics, platforms, and regions. What was once a single TV ad is now 5,000 micro-targeted ads, optimized in real-time.
Evans highlighted connected TV advertising as one of the fastest-growing sectors, projected to hit $50 billion in 2025, with India leading the charge. Unlike traditional TV advertising—where brands would wait months to analyze performance—connected TV allows real-time data-driven decision-making, finally solving the age-old advertising dilemma: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don’t know which half.” With AI-powered measurement tools, brands now know exactly which ads work, where they work, and why.
The Next Big Disruption
Evans closed his session with a reality check. While Silicon Valley is fixated on what AI will achieve by 2030, most industries are still adapting to technologies from 2010 or even 2000. E-commerce was once considered a radical idea, yet today, it dominates retail. The same trajectory will apply to AI, connected TV, and digital advertising. Those who embrace these shifts will thrive. Those who don’t? They might just find themselves in free fall—like Wile E. Coyote—realizing too late that their foundation has disappeared.
